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HC Bench deprecates Director of Drug Control

: The Madras High Court Bench here has deprecated the Director of Drug Control and the Assistant Director of Drug Control, Tirunelveli zone, for sitting for years together over an application filed by a Siddha practitioner seeking licence for making Gomathy Moola Lekium, a Siddha drug.

“Officials not taken decision”

Allowing a writ petition filed by the practitioner S. Subramanian in 2007, Justice Vinod Kumar Sharma said that the two officials had not taken any decision on the application filed by the petitioner though they were under a statutory obligation to take a decision on such applications within three months as per the Drugs and Cosmetics Act, 1940.

“Till date, no action has been taken on the application as the application has been neither rejected nor the license granted to the petitioner.”

“This fact is not disputed by the counsel appearing on behalf of the State and this shows that the respondents 1 and 2 have scant respect for the provisions of law, which deserves to be deprecated,” the judge said.

“Decide in a month”

He directed the two officials to take an appropriate decision on the petitioner's application within a month.